The Disappearance of Feliciano Vargas
by vasathebrave
Summary: As Ludwig (Germany) and Feliciano (Italy)'s marriage crumbles, Feli goes missing and Ludwig is blamed for it. But did the German really kill his husband? Dark!GerIta with Evil!Italy (Oh yes!) This is a Gone Girl crossover, so I'd highly suggest reading the original first if you don't want basically the entire plot spoiled.


8

Gone:

**A/N: Is it too early to do a Gone Girl crossover? Too bad. I've been itching to write Dark!GerIta with Evil!Italy and this is perfect for that. If you don't like unhappy marriages, seriously messed up plots or gay-ness, turn back now. Basically, get ready for the least cute GerIta story ever. (If you prefer something fluffy, I would suggest reading Auf Weidershen Sweetheart, which is basically the cutest story ever). And yes, it would be totally accurate for the two characters to be married in the setting I chose. Gay marriage is legal in NH and has been for quite a while (yay NH). Also, I am quite aware that the dad was the mean parent in Gone Girl but know that Germania is kind of accepted as the Dad figure for Ludwig and Gilbert and I'm rather fond of him, TBH (maybe it has to do with the fact that he bears more than a passing resemblance to Legolas from LOTR 3) so I'm making their mom basically the personification of National Socialist (AKA the Nazi Party, yup :P), so instead of trying not to be a misogynistic (doesn't really work when you're married to a dude) asshole like his Dad, this time he's trying not to be a racist asshole like his mom. And yes, I did take the liberty of switching the location to NH because I live there when I'm not going to school in good ol' TX (the greatest COUNTRY in the world, or didn't ya know? Lol :P) and actually know shit about it. Also it has the perfect creepy vibe for a story like this, ne?**

**Warnings: Umm… swearing. Mostly in German :/ Super-vague (like the least-descriptive EVER!) reference to sex… so if you didn't already know that that's a thing, SEX IS A THING.**

**Disclaimer: Hetalia isn't mine. Gone Girl isn't mine. Basically I own nothing except for this interpretation and any OCs I may or may not decide to throw in (currently leaning towards not…I fucking hate OCs. If you have a strong opinion on this, feel free to comment or PM me) If the story seems like it almost directly quotes the actual Gone Girl in parts, realize that that was on purpose to maintain the atmosphere and give credit to the immensely talented Gillian Flynn.**

Part 1: The Disappearance of Feliciano Vargas

"All palaces are temporary palaces"

-Anon

LUDWIG BEILSCHMIDT: THE DAY OF

The day that Feliciano Vargas disappeared started out normally. Enough. Ludwig Beilschmidt woke at 6 AM on the dot- a habit he'd never quite been able to shake from his military days, and wasn't sure he wanted to. _Laziness breeds weakness. _A few sickly rays of sunlight peeked through the blinds and the German rolled over, ice-blue eyes determinedly squeezed shut. He sprawled across the king-size bed-a relic from their old apartment- snuggling into the flannel sheets. It was only six after all. He could rest, could take a few minutes to relax before he started getting ready for work, right? _Wrong._ So wrong. As Ludwig reached across the bed hoping to find a warm Feli to cuddle with, he came up with nothing, nicht, nada. Nothing but an indent in the mattress and rumpled sheets- which meant that above all odds, the tiny Italian was awake. Yawning, Ludwig pushed himself into a sitting position and forced himself not to drop his head into his hands, because as unlikely as it seemed, he, Ludwig Beilschmidt had forgotten something big. _Scheisse! _He felt like an idiot, could almost hear Mutti's voice telling him how stupid and _inferior_ he was and how if he'd managed to forget something like this, it was a wonder he'd been able to hack it in the legal world at all. He was beginning to get the sinking feeling that she was right. Whatever grand occasion that could have Feliciano Vargas up before noon was of colossal importance, even if the German couldn't yet remember what it was. Without even pausing to glance in the mirror, he grabbed his robe and headed downstairs trying to convince himself that it was just like reporting for duty.

As Ludwig crept through the shadowy recesses of the house, he couldn't help but notice how eerie the winding staircases and echoing hallways looked in the gray morning light- like the set of a horror movie. He suppressed a shiver as he passed a window, noticing the way that the giant lawn disappeared into the mist and the ghostly swirls of frost on the windowpane. Even in September, the yard was already beginning to look like a kingdom of the dead. Frozen, grey, trapped in time- the kind of place where fluffy, sweet-faced dogs and tiny children and pretty, pretty girls disappear and never come back. He dragged an enormous hand across the glass and recoiled as the cold surface froze him solid. Winter comes early in New Hampshire. The German stared across the lawn, a tiny frown tugging at the edge of his chiseled features, his blue eyes narrowed as he gripped the edge of the windowsill. An anemic ray of sunlight poked its way accusingly through clouds the color of dirty concrete, highlighting the young man's sleep-disheveled hair and alpine cheekbones.

_You have been seen._

Shamefaced, the German made his way downstairs, heavy footsteps heralding his doom. As he neared the kitchen, it dawned on Ludwig what day it was and despite the golden light filtering down the too-empty hallway, he was filled with a cold sense of dread. _Our Anniversary. Of course. You would forget that, dumkompf, _a snide voice whispered. It wasn't even unfair and he knew it. If the German was being honest with himself, and he tried to be, he would admit to being a supremely unromantic person. Of course he would forget to buy a present, of course he would forget to make a dinner reservation, forget about everything including the day itself. This, Feli would say, a condescending smile on his angelic face, was just another example of Typical Ludwig Behavior. _You would, _was a favorite phrase of his. _You would _take the dog for a walk and leave me to clean up the kitchen, _you would _ignore that homeless lady, _you would _forget our anniversary. One thing Ludwig could count on, whatever he _would _was bad.

Ludwig and Feliciano had been married for five years. They had been unhappy for two. If the German had to put a date on it, he could reluctantly trace it back to a nasty day in December, the second round of layoffs in what was beginning to be referred to as the Great Recession. They were very sorry, his bosses said, but they'd have to let him go. _You're a good attorney Ludwig, but you're just a second year associate. We're sure you understand._ Ludwig understood all right. Understood how the high life that he had _bit and scratched and clawed his way to the top _for was crashing down around his ears. He could still feel the tightness in his throat as he tried not to sob upon hearing the news, even as he, ever the good-boy, straight-A-student, perfect soldier responded with a quiet "yes sir". Suddenly the young man who had spent his entire life trying to Make It In America had nothing. It was that fast. He was ashamed to admit that he spent the next few weeks in a dark haze of depression, lying on the couch, miserably flipping through old porn magazines that he was only halfway paying attention to as a constant refrain of _jobless=directionless=worthless _played in his mind. He could remember the irritation that began to surface of Feli's sunshine face at that moment, the dark flicker that would occasionally appear in his amber eyes when he saw _yet another _bag of laundry thrown haphazardly across the hallway of their home where their two-year-old german shepherd could shit on it. Three weeks later, Feli was cut loose from his job writing psychologically accurate quizzes for an art magazine. Just like that, they had gone from being the fairytale couple, part of the yuppie elite, to two jobless (_worthless_) grown-ups, distant, resentful room-mates who anxiously paced the apartment that they could no longer afford and sometimes fucked when the pressure (and_ pressure_) became too much.

Something had to give, and eventually, it did. The phone rang. Once, twice, three times. Eventually, encouraged by a poisonous glare courtesy of Feli, Ludwig picked up. It was big Bruder, calling from their childhood home in the wilds of New Hampshire, his voice typically loud and obnoxious even as he relayed the news of their mother's recent downturn in health. The younger Beilschmidt tried to imagine his proud (snobbish), commanding (terrifying) mother in a nursing home and couldn't quite make the connection. He could only listen in a sort of disbelieving stupor as his older brother relayed the details of her disease. Yes, Mutter had advanced stages of memory loss, no, sadly it hadn't improved her personality ( . Gilbert forced a laugh even though neither of them really felt that it was funny). Even though the situation was horrible, it filled Ludwig with a sense of hope. Here was his purpose. Here was his chance to prove that he wasn't _useless_. His chance to prove that he could still do everything right. He was going to save his mother and his brother and his marriage and _himself_.

The words stumbled out of his mouth before he even had a chance to think. "I'll come back. I can help you run the bar. You shouldn't have to take care of Mutti by yourself."

There was a long silence and Ludwig could feel his older brother's resentment through the phone. _Don't call her that. She's not __**my **__Mutti_. As often as he pretended not to care in public, Gilbert Beilschmidt did feel the sting of rejection at being their Mutter's least favorite son. _When Vati finally signed the divorce papers, he went to live with him and never looked back. _Maybe Gil was feeling guilty. Ludwig wasn't about to let his bruder bear the pain alone.

"Look Gil," He began, explaining logically, the only way that worked for his strategy-oriented bruder. "There's nothing for us here. We're jobless, broke. Feli's money is only going to hold out for so long- I'll come back, maybe I can teach."

There was a clink of glassware, the sound of shots being poured, and he could tell that Gilbert was thinking about it. "Will Feliciano mind?" The older Beilschmidt brother offered by way of reply. It always Feliciano with Gilbert, never Feli. For reasons unknown to the Ludwig, the albino had never quite warmed up to the Italian.

"Nein." The younger brother replied. "Nein. Feli will be ok."

That was his first mistake: assuming that his rich-boy husband with his Boston tastes and Boston pride would be ok with being dragged back to the Grimm-brother forests of Ludwig's childhood. He hadn't quite thought over how arrogant and selfish he was being, thought over how _he would_ think it was ok to drag him back like a war-prize this sleepy, no-where town, so unlike the soaring buildings and constant motion of the city. If he'd known the misery that the move would cause, the German would never have made it. As it was, Ludwig climbed out of the U-Haul and watched as the Italian's face crumpled into a frown at the sight of their new home, a giant skeleton-house on a cul-de-sac surrounded by looming maple trees, an early, price-reduced survivor in a failed subdivision along the Merrimack River. It was supposed to be a compromise (The space! The view!), but Feli didn't see it that way. To him, it was a betrayal, another act by his _selfish_, _inconsiderate_ husband to trap him down and make him dependent. As the copper-haired young man stepped inside, refusing to help his husband with the boxes after declaring the house "soulless", Ludwig knew that this was the beginning of the end.

After that, it seemed that _everything _he did was bad. At times, the German wore he could see Feli watching him with amber eyes counting his mistakes like a judgmental God. There were the good days, of course, when the Italian would hug him, and laugh, and they'd _make love _(not just fuck) like old times- but these days were few and far-between, increasingly giving way to cold mornings when Feli would stare and stare and _stare_ with a cold expression that was _not him _until Ludwig went off to work and would greet him later curled in a spiky ball on the couch, eyes saying _touch me, I dare you_. And the crazy part was, the German never could discern what caused these moods. Was he going to wake up to Nice Feli who loved him, or _Not-_Feli, who knew every wrong thing he did and never _ever _forgave? It was hell trying to figure out which he'd get. Which brought him back to this morning. As Ludwig hovered in the doorway, watching his husband cook breakfast he sighed, heavy and miserable, counting the seconds before he was _seen. 10, 9, 8… _

_You have been seen._

"Ve… Luddy! Buongiorno!" Feliciano smiled and _the world stopped._

It was impossible to think about Feli without noticing how _innocent_ he looked, how happy, standing there, in nothing but an apron, his lightly tanned face covered in powdered sugar. He looked like an angel, or an alter-boy, the bad kind who you kissed behind the chapel when everyone else was going to confession. He looked vulnerable and sultry and ethereal and- _exactly like he did when Ludwig met him._

"Do you want some strudel?" the Italian offered, holding up the silver tray like a child who'd won first prize at the science fair. "I made it because it's your favorite."

Ludwig felt his veins fill up with ice-water. He wasn't hungry and he just needed to get out. "Nein, Feli" He replied, his stomach twisting with guilt as the Italian's face fell. "I-I am very late for work."

"It's _six AM._" Feliciano's voice was teary and accusatory.

Ludwig sighed, retreating upstairs to get ready. "It's not fair to Gil. Bruder needs me at the bar."

It wasn't a lie _per se_. The Bar, resurrected from the ashes of bankruptcy by Feli's money and cleverly named by Gilbert in what his younger brother assumed was more a lack of creativity than anything else, ran virtually all day, every day, and while Gilbert hadn't asked the younger Beilschmidt to join him, he could always use the help.

After pulling his faded red pickup into the gravel and pot-holes parking lot, Ludwig exited the car and slammed the door, shivering as a flock of crows vacated a skeleton-tree, cawing their displeasure, their charcoal silhouettes backlit by a drab, grey sky. Across the lot, he could see the Merrimack, surrounded by steep grassy banks, its' infamously swift waters running fast and furious, the watery grave of at least a few teenaged boys and idiot thrill-seekers every year. Down by the bridge, a group of homeless men congregated by a trash-can fire. As Ludwig watched them with a sense of pity and fear, because that _could have been him_, one looked at him, across the water, eyes narrow and accusing. Ludwig stepped back as if burned.

_You have been seen._

**Reviews are love!**


End file.
